Lockout Tagout (LOTO) is a safety procedure instated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) when doing maintenance on dangerous machinery and hazardous power sources. In this procedure, authorized workers shut off the machinery and use physical locks and tags to prevent operation during maintenance. LOTO has been the industry standard for 32 years since it was instantiated, being used in many different industries such as industrial work, mining, and agriculture. However, LOTO is not without its issues. The LOTO procedure requires employees to be trained and is prone to human error. As well, there is a clash between the technological advancement of machinery and the requirement of physical locks and tags required for LOTO. In this thesis, we propose a digital LOTO system to help streamline the LOTO procedure and increase the safety of the workers with machine learning. We first discuss what LOTO is, its current requirements, limitations, and issues. Then we look at current IoT locks and digital LOTO solutions and compare them to the requirements of traditional LOTO. Then we present our proposed digital LOTO system which will enhance the safety of workers and streamline the LOTO process with machine learning. Our digital LOTO system uses a rule-based system that enforces and streamlines the LOTO procedure and uses machine learning to detect potential violations of LOTO standards. We also validate that our system fulfills the requirements of LOTO and that the combination of machine learning and rule-based systems ensures the safety of workers by detecting violations with high accuracy. Finally, we discuss potential future work and improvements on this system as this thesis is part of a larger collaboration with Chevron, which plans to implement a digital LOTO system in their oil fields.

The main objective of the study was to determine the risk(s) associated with lockout/tagout of hazardous energy and propose a new LOTO procedure which tracks the implementation of LOTO to mitigate against identified risks as a basis for promotion of safety. The study focuses on electrical personnel working in PHCN. Only electrical accident risks are examined, not other types of risk e.g. mechanical, chemical, and nuclear. To gather material for this study, a questionnaire was distributed amongst electrical workers in PHCN and their supervisors were interviewed. Relevant literature and publications were studied as reference. According to electrical personnel experience, electrocution, arc flash, arc blast, burns and lockout and tagout of the wrong electrical circuit are seen as the biggest electrical safety risk with regards to LOTO of hazardous energy. The research reveals new information about electrical accident risks. This information is used to create a procedure for tracking LOTO of hazardous energy. The procedure can be utilized in the mitigation of electrical risks and promotion of / Thesis (MIng (Development and Management Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

The main objective of the study was to determine the risk(s) associated with lockout/tagout of hazardous energy and propose a new LOTO procedure which tracks the implementation of LOTO to mitigate against identified risks as a basis for promotion of safety. The study focuses on electrical personnel working in PHCN. Only electrical accident risks are examined, not other types of risk e.g. mechanical, chemical, and nuclear. To gather material for this study, a questionnaire was distributed amongst electrical workers in PHCN and their supervisors were interviewed. Relevant literature and publications were studied as reference. According to electrical personnel experience, electrocution, arc flash, arc blast, burns and lockout and tagout of the wrong electrical circuit are seen as the biggest electrical safety risk with regards to LOTO of hazardous energy. The research reveals new information about electrical accident risks. This information is used to create a procedure for tracking LOTO of hazardous energy. The procedure can be utilized in the mitigation of electrical risks and promotion of / Thesis (MIng (Development and Management Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.